What I have done thus far is this:

Right-click one component instance from anywhere in the model hierarchy, then select "Save all Instances"

The plugin saves the component to disc in the same folder as the original model as a .skp file. The plugin goes through the model and writes the positions of each of the instances in the model to a text file with the same name as the component i the same folder.

Now you have the option to use the "Import Instances" in the Extensions menu. You can import to the same model, or to a new model. All instances are imported to the same location as in the original file, but they are all at the Model context. You can then manually save imported components file as a version 8 file.

I am still working out how to best create the version 8 file containing only the selected components from the original model. I hope this helps for now. I plan on continuing work as time permits.

jf_save_instances.rb

Would it make sense to be able to right-click a single instance of a component and create the _v8 file?

@rv1974 said:

Jim may I humbly request a sub-version of your 'Save Copy As Previous Version' that would save only selectedin v8 format and would preserve coordinates.
Desirabaly it should save from inside hierarchy,
save silently (no pop-ups)to the same parent directory, and add some kind of suffix '_v8' in the file name.
Thanks in advance.

I am not sure I understand what you need. We have also exchanged some private messages which have only confused the issue for me. Can you explain in more detail what you would like to do? What problem needs solved, or what work-flow could be more efficient?

@woodshop said:

does the plugin work for SU 2015?

The plugin is for the editor Notepad++. The SketchUp Ruby Debugger works with SketchUp 15, so yes you should be able to connect Notepad++ to the SketchUp debug server.

Hi rv I'll see what I can do but it likely won't happen until this weekend.

I can confirm. I downloaded your model and got no issues when pressing "Fix Problems" from the Statistics dialog. After scaling up, many problems were found.

It is unusual because the standard advice when having these types of problems is to model at a larger scale, then scale down later. In your case, scaling up causes something to happen that SketchUp does not like.

After looking over your model, the geometry is not very "clean." For example, although the model is hundreds of meters in length, there are still some very tiny edges (less then a mm) which were likely created during intersect operations. SketchUp does not like small edges, and so these may well be the cause.

The model has nice symmetry, and using Components for each section of the ship would make for easier modeling since editing one section would edit them all.

This appears to be due to a difference between SketchUp 15 and SketchUp 16 UI.openpanel behavior.

As a short-term work-around, can you try to enter a * then press ENTER in the filename dropdown to force all files to be listed?

Actually, I don't think fileutils is needed. I think I was going to use some methods in fileutils to search for the Teigha converter on the disk drive, but haven't got back to it.

You can remove or comment out the line.

See Dan's update:

http://forums.sketchup.com/t/update-to-scenes-rb-example-from-the-old-api-blog/11514

Thank you for verifying, John.

Is your filesystem set to case-sensitive?

Either way, try version 0.11.2 I just uploaded to the PluginStore.

This is what I get when importing with FreeDXF on Windows. Is this what you expect?

Untitled.skp

@smicha said:

It's not working at all.

Two things to try:

1. Try double-clicking the a2s.exe from Windows file explorer.

2. Open a command prompt in the "win" folder and try to run a2s.exe, and maybe try to convert a file - something like:

> .\a2s "C;\users\YOU\Downloads\test.stl"

Are there any errors or dialogs?

Thanks for your patience. I just want to make sure you gave tried version 15.4 which I uploaded last evening and which fixed a similar problem kaas had?

It would help if you could try to import the file while the Ruby Console window is open, and then post any errors here.

@smicha said:

When I choose - any file - and select obj nothing happens.

Windows or Mac? What version? 32 or 64 bit?

@smicha said:

Could you add obj import - this is one of the most important format.

If you select Any File Type in the File Selection dialog, you will be able to select .obj files and import them. Textures are not supported, though. Right now I am just trying to figure out how to make it work on different operating systems and versions.

Also, the converter is a console application so it might be helpful if people could attempt to convert a file on the command line. Even double-clicking the a2a.exe file might bring up helpful error dialogs. Thanks again.

I put up version 15.3. Open the Ruby Console before running to see the errors.

Sorry about experimenting on you guys - I am fairly new to creating executables that need to run on a variety of architectures.

Thank you for you help.

I updated to 15.2. I just added some debugging info. Please try again. Thanks.